Get Your War On!

Oh Canada, which is where this story gets the proper headline, as opposed to here in the United States, where the extensibility of the feature enhancements make for streamlining the core competencies of news organizations more extensive and competently, featureful...

By Randall Mikkelsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress should explicitly declare a state of armed conflict with al Qaeda to make clear the United States can detain suspected members as long as the war on terrorism lasts, U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said on Monday.

Mukasey urged Congress to make the declaration in a package of legislative proposals to establish a legal process for terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo, in response to a Supreme Court ruling last month that detainees had a constitutional right to challenge their detention.

"Any legislation should acknowledge again and explicitly that this nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated organizations, who have already proclaimed themselves at war with us," Mukasey said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute.

"Congress should reaffirm that for the duration of the conflict the United States may detain as enemy combatants those who have engaged in hostilities or purposefully supported al Qaeda, the Taliban and associated organizations," he said.

Mukasey was not asking for a formal declaration of war, which would trigger certain emergency powers under the Constitution and international law, a Justice Department spokesman said. U.S. President George W. Bush has on numerous occasions said the United States was "at war" against terrorists and cited that as a basis for his powers.

[...]

Mukasey may not have *explicitly* asked for it, but that's no reason to think the Congress won't deliver it anyway.

Q1: How many people here can recite the collective and exhaustive list of all those "certain emergency powers" such a formal declaration would legally provide to the executive branch?

Q2: How many of those powers have yet to be exercised by this President despite not having been legally afforded to him?

water policy wonkage

For those of you unfamiliar with it, Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert is a brilliant book about the history of water policy in the West, particularly California. Micheal O'Hare at The Reality Based Community points out however, that the state of water issues in Ca has changed since 1986 when the book was published, and that water policy geeks would be well advised to get a little current on how things work now. If you are interested in these issues, it's a succinct update on what has changed in water and ag policy since then. Check it out.

Stupid Or Evil? You Decide!

Over at the Lake, Dr. Murphy serves up a round of medical horror that makes me clutch my head like a stunned monkey.

For at least two years, the Nashville PD have been recklessly endangering citizens by using emergency medical personnel to forcibly inject Versed -- a powerful prescription medication with side effects including agitation and confusion -- into agitated, confused people. This potentially lethal stupidity is what we can expect when people who go to work with guns on their belt decide to play "doctor".

Or, as I would say, "...when credible reports of official state-sanctioned drug torture are ignored by policy-makers and the perpetrators are not held accountable for their crimes."

I want to scream at the top of my lungs that I told you this would happen, but the truth is I didn't specifically imagine this particular variant of the horror. But look, the situation is this: we let a bunch of assholes in the state security apparatus get away with using medical procedures to apply punishment for refusing to respect their authoritay, so now we're going to see more of it.

Think about that the next time you voluntarily let somebody knock you out before you go into a surgery.

Listen To The Chair Leg Of Truth!

It does not lie!

Those Courageous Democrats!

Remind me again why I should feel hopeful that Democrats are interested in restoring the rule of law.

I have firm confirmation that Nancy Pelosi is urging the Judiciary committee NOT to go forward with contempt against Rove.

Congressman John Conyers and the Judiciary staff are battling for it but this has become an infight among dems.

Time to burn up the phone lines.

Click though and raise hell.

What Then, Larry? What Then?

Kagro X at DailyKos explains the problem.

The executive branch shall construe the requirements on the Inspectors General in section 301(b) as advisory in nature, so that the provisions are consistent with the President's constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and to supervise the unitary executive branch.

"What then?" she says.

I'll tell you what happens then... everyone in Congress who supported the new FISA bill, including the Democrats among them, cheers as the White House turns the line-eaters loose on everybody in their enemies list, and they feed everything caught in the net straight to Charlie Black— who uses it to ratfuck anybody who doesn't put their back into getting McCain elected this November.

Then, on the odd chance that counting the votes somehow results in an Obama victory (don't count on it yet, homies), then and only then will it suddenly become a Constitutional Crisis that the government has trash-canned the 4th Amendment. I'm not sure I foresee how the crisis gets resolved, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it all just blows over without anything getting fixed. Democrats will definitely love them line-eaters.

I'm really getting tired of explaining this shit to people.

No Subject, Really...

It occurs to me that, if the GOP wants to attack Obama on his most perceived strength, i.e. his rhetorical ability, then the appropriate response is to go after McCain likewise, i.e. to attack him on his most perceived strength, i.e. basically to call out McCain as a coward and a fraud. (He is, you know. He is.)

Will Democrats do this? Somehow, I very much doubt it.

Modern Problems.

Atrios explains why the "do you want a liberal Democrat in the White House to have these powers?" question may not produce the desired effect when you pose it to wingnut freakbots...

Regret

As I've written before, Democrats will regret embracing the expansion of executive power because a President Obama will find his administration undone by an "abuse of power" scandal. All of those powers which were necessary to prevent the instant destruction of the country will instantly become impeachable offenses. If you can't imagine how such a pivot can take place then you haven't been paying attention.

So, yes— it appears we may have tactical considerations beyond the mere ethical concerns about Obama caving on the telecom immunity provision in the forthcoming foreign intelligence surveillance law. It seems nearly certain now that we will soon have a President, who voted while he was a Senator to give the White House power to order private enterprises to violate the law with immunity from prosecution, and the only open question before us at this point is whether we want to have a media and political environment that allows him to be impeached for doing it.

Hmmm. Modern problems. They arise in unexpected ways. I'm sure I will be saying "Who Could Have Possibly Predicted This?" in a couple years.

A Republic, if you can keep it.

What exactly is Lindsey Graham suggesting here?:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) vowed Thursday to do everything in his power to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision on Guantanamo Bay detainees, saying that, “if necessary,” he would push for a constitutional amendment to modify the decision.

Is he actually saying what I think he is saying? That he wants to amend Article II, Section 9 of the constitution:

The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

Because if he is, could somebody please explain to him that the Great Writ is not some liberal hippie legal plot to aid the overthrow of the Republic? This little diatribe actually shocked me. A lawyer, an AMERICAN laywer, actually wants to amend the freakin Constituion and hamstring Habeas? Look Lindsey, it's not the courts fault your law degree is a worthless scrap, particularly in light of the fact you were the author of the Military Commissions act that was so efficently defenstrated by Justice Kennedy. Please stop sniffing around my Constitution. You and your batshit insane legal playmates are the last people on earth I want writing amendments to the Constitution.

Seriously, what is next with these people? After wiping their ass with the Geneva Conventions and the Bill of Rights, now they want a piece of one of the keystones handed down from before the Revolution, meant to preserve liberty and serve as a bulwark against false imprisonment and tyranny? You don't agree with the Courts decision, fine. Feel free to pout and kick your dog. But, you and your facist justice friend, Nino "who's an originalist?" Scalia can stay the Frak away from my Constitution thanks.

And in the annals of hysterical stupidity, this really takes the cake:

This decision will come at a cost,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. “The Supreme Court just moved us closer to the day when U.S. Marine rifle teams will have to have lawyers read Miranda rights to terrorists captured on the battlefield.”

What a shock this comes from Duncan Hunter. No Duncan, it does no such thing. It only moves us closer to the day when we restore the rule of law and justice to this country. I'm not surprised you cannot tell the difference.

I like this one too:

The American people are going to wake up tomorrow and be shocked to hear that a member of Al Qaeda has the same constitutional rights as an American citizen,” said Graham. “[Even] the Nazis never had that right.”

If the President and his minions had used Nuremberg as a model for constructing a legal process for the Gitmo detainees, that would have passed muster. It's not quite the same, but it at least acknowledged that the defendents have rights, and they are entitled to a fair trial, which even the Friggin Nazi's received. As bad as Al Queda is, they cannot possibly hold a candle to the Nazi's?? For Christ's Sakes, they murdered over 10 millions people in industrialized death camps. What the hell is he talking about??

And for the record, if the American people are suprised that, as Jefferson wrote in the Declaration, that rights are "inalienable", and that they are universal,"endowed by their Creator", then the American people are shockingly ignorant and should grow the fuck up and learn what those words really mean. They do not mean, in any possible way, that military and civilian leaders can arbitrarily suspend or deprive people of their libery without due process, or strip them of their basic humanity and dignity EVER. This isn't rocket science people. It's only rocket science to the semi-closeted nutjobs in the VP's office and their ideological friends like Lindsey Graham who cannot grasp these ideas.

When can I wake up from this nightmare??

And Mr. Franklin? I can only say we are deeply sorry that we allowed these people to fuckup the Republic you tried to pass on to us. We're trying to do better. Thanks.

HR 4279: Well Below Average Law Writing

Okay... it's been a while since we've pulled the breach plug out of the ol' mojowire canon. And I don't think we would be doing it without a good gorrham reason!

HR 4279, the Ministry of Truth Authorization Act of 2008 Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008 is a hideous piece of legislative sophistry that essentially makes that burned copy of the latest Coldplay album you got from your friend a federal felony.

Yeah, but who's got time to run down all these kids with their crazy music and book sharing? Well, the DoJ will when this is enacted, by creating a whole new division at Justice with it's own senior level appointee position, as well as greasing the wheels of local law enforcement to be on the look out for Captain Jack Sparrow and the Pirates of the Cyberbbean.

Moreover, there are provisions for civil and criminal forfeiture that allow the U.S. Customs officials to search your iPod/laptop, etc... at any place in the United States just because and then take them if they find anything that is covered by copyright protections and --and this is the kicker, if I read this right-- anything that can be used to circumvent copyright.

Dr. Strychnine brought this to our attention on his Live Journal site, and he has been hollering about this for years, as have the rest of us here. Now it's happening. This bill has passed the house, and is going to the Senate.

Now would be a good time to start banging the phones and emails on your various states' Senators to voice your displeasure...

mojo sends

I'll be chucking out my copy of Ringworld...

via SadlyNo, I read about this adhoc group of "advisors"

Now a fixture at Department of Homeland Security science and technology conferences, SIGMA is a loosely affiliated group of science fiction writers who are offering pro bono advice to anyone in government who want their thoughts on how to protect the nation.

Don't raise your hopes, its not Ken McCloud or Neil Gaiman. It these frakking jokers:

Among the group’s approximately 24 members is Larry Niven, the bestselling and award-winning author of such books as “Ringworld” and “Lucifer’s Hammer,” which he co-wrote with SIGMA member Jerry Pournelle.

Pournelle, according to covert operatives of the Mojowire, is renowned for cranking at Science Fiction conventions about Government involvement in Space Exploration, or some such libertarian nonsense. Apparently, he's the more liberal of the famed Pournelle/Niven pairing. This is the part that made my cranium explode:

Niven said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants.
“The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren’t going to pay for anything anyway,” Niven said.
“Do you know how politically incorrect you are?” Pournelle asked.
“I know it may not be possible to use this solution, but it does work,” Niven replied

hahahahaha. Oh Larry, you are so cuuutte when you are politically incorrect. Oh wait, you're not being politically incorrect, you're being an ignorant racist FrakFace. Um, Larry, maybe you should consider the following facts:

Hospitals are not losing money because of "illegal immigrants". They are losing money because the business model of Health Care is broken and needs to be fixed. A key aspect of that. which you are vaguely and inaccurately alluding to is the burden the uninsured place on the dwindling number of Hospital Emergency rooms, where the law and all standards of human decency require they treat and stabilize everyone who shows up. A relatively small percentage of these are illegal immigrants. Most of them are legal immigrants or citizens who do not have health coverage, and show up with acute health problems that cost astronomicly more to treat in the ER than they would at the Doctors office. Maybe you should get your facts straight Mr. Ringworld, before you pop off to a government agency with your too maverick for the room ideas.

By the way Larry, terrorizing sick people to get them to avoid the ER will result in otherwise preventable serious illness and death. Some of whom are children, since they comprise a sizeable number of the people illegal immigrants and uninusured citizens bring to the ER. Little else other than sick kids or debilitating illness brings people to the ER who don't have insurance. It's too expensive. And Larry, someone walking around with untreated influenza or tuberculosis could turn in a bigger national security threat than any of the others your overheated imagination can conjure up. Think 1918 Larry. And crack a book other than one of your own sometime about the history of pandemics.

And just for the record, Editor Biz works in a Southeast Los Angeles Hospital at ground zero of the Latino community which shelters many of these terrifying illegal immigrants. You know why our ER is full all the time? Hmmm...? It's not the dreaded illegal immigrant. It's because a huge Public hospital located in Central Los Angeles closed down, and we're the closest ER for people in this part of town. Relatively few of them are here illegally. They are the working poor of Los Angeles, mostly uninsured, many of whom are African American. Is their legal status good enough for you Larry? The huge pool of urban working poor will still be here to inconvience your trips to the ER to be treated, even if the Larry Nivens of the world hermitically seal the United States off from the rest of the world.

It kills me to find out that Larry Niven is just as big an ignorant crank as Pournelle. Even Orson Scott Card is sounding rational next to these dufes.

Oh, before I forget, let's chat about this genius idea:

David Brin, keeping on the topic of empowering citizens with mobile phone technology, delivered a self-described “rant” on the lack of funds being spent to support citizen reservists to back up the military, homeland security officials and first responders in times of crisis. “It is impossible for you to succeed without us!” he shouted at the assembled officials, while banging his fist on the table and at one point jumping off his chair to wave a mobile phone in their faces.

Citizen Reservists?? uh oh...

Pournelle said that once mobile phone technology and the devices tacked on them to take pictures and record video become more ubiquitous, then ordinary citizens will be empowered to take security into their own hands — a prediction some have said already has come to pass.

you mean, like a Lynch Mob? What *exactly* will waving cell phones and taking picture do for the security of the Fatherland? Let me tell you, people sending DHS pictures of the neighbors dog peeing on their lawn, and pictures of people of color walking in suburban neighborhoods, spooking terrified white people. Can you tell the difference between a second generation Middle Eastern Amerian citizen, and a covert Al Queda operative. I'll give you a clue, you will never see the Al Queda operative at the mall.

Cell phones would not have prevented 9/11 , nor would have "citizen reservists" stalking American streets looking for Al Queda devil robots. Coordination among the agencies charged with foreign and domestic intelligence, accompanied with a radical culture change that would enable better cooperation. Oh, not to mention that Senior leaders like the President and the National Security Advisor should maybe pay closer attention when CIA briefers give them memo's with titles like" Al Queda likely to attack U.S.," or things to that effect. Without that, we can put a cell phone in everyone's hand, and it won't really change the odds.

Oh, and Larry, Ringworld Throne sucked.

Fat Tony Speaks...

Is Antonin Scalia the most dishonest person in America? [c.f. Fat Tony Scalia Pimps Book, Sensitive Side on NPR]

If not, then he's certainly in the running.

Fat Tony has been granting select interviews with tame reporters to pimp his new book on courtroom persuasion. The first thing that really strikes the listener is his almost apologetic approach to the Constitution, as if he knows he's completely full of shit. My initial reaction was: "what a tool..."

To illustrate... in the interview, he says:

"My Constitution is not living, it is dead," Scalia says.

As an "originalist" and a "textualist," to Scalia the Constitution means what the framers intended back at the founding of the republic.

"Whatever they understood then is, in my view, the meaning ... and it's not up to me to say it really shouldn't mean that any more, it should mean something different. Once you get into that boat, you have no criterion," he says.

Forget the horrible fornication of actual history he engages in there for a moment, if you can, and focus rather on this:

"[It is] entirely clear from our Nation’s historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists.”

So quoth The Tool in McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky

This is directly at odds with what the primary framer of the First Amendment intended. We know it specifically because James Madison commented frequently upon it; not merely relying on Jefferson's "wall of separation" letter to the Anabaptists. Madison writes:

“Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history”

“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.”

“And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together”

“The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state”

“Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government”

In another example of Fat Tony's questionable judicial honesty: In 2000, he wrote a majority opinion regarding federal port fees in Charleston, South Carolina. The organizing principle of his take was that those kind of administrative functions had no business being done by the Feds. It was tantamount to federal interference with a state activity and of course the federal government couldn’t do that.

In less than 90 days, his ideology swung around 180 degrees and he ruled that the Federal Government had every right to stop a state from recounting votes and overturning a Republican victory in a state election, and that the state had no business interfering in such a critical federal function. And he did it quoting the same phrase of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution both times...

So, yeah, his commitment to his ideology and his honesty is somewhat questionable.

Moreover, I am extra-unimpressed with his assertions that he is really sensitive and he personally suffers from criticism. This from the guy who routinely adds little digs and insulting quips about his fellow justices' reasoning and even their fitness as jurists in his opinions.

Memo to Fat Tony: Hey Jackass, if you don't want people to react to you like that, then don't provoke them in your writing. You are a legal bully, and we all know Mojo's patience for bullies. So spare me your "but I'm really just a sensitive troll..." routine. You are a swaggering thug, and swaggering thugs get run, here.

Look, let's just get to the essence of my take... Justice Scalia, you are a tool, a liar and a hypocrite and -- left or right -- you are the worst thing to happen to American jurisprudence in my lifetime.

I look forward to seeing your half-bright screeds being relegated to the scrapheap of dead letter legal history.

mojo sends

The March of War

[c.f. here and here]

It would appear that there is a dead-ender gang in the Pentagon and in the basement crypt of the White House that is continuing to push for military confrontation with Iran.

I hear you now: "'military confrontation?' what kind of tosser magazines are you readin'... just call it war!" But that's just the thing, though. These people don't really want war, they want War™ not actually war but an incredible simulation...

Okay, enough of the dispassionate sarcasm. But in the last few weeks, it would seem like the anti-Iran rhetoric has been ratcheting up; reports of secret Iranian death squads planting bombs in Iraq, Joint Chiefs openly talking about how they are going to bomb Tehran back to the stone age, Bob Gates still out pimping the "Iran is hell bent on getting nuclear weapons" rap, although it seems like fewer and fewer people are buying...

Now a merchant vessel "under contract" to the U.S. Navy are getting involved in confrontations in the Persian Gulf. I have always had my questions about the "chaos build-out" theory popular with s9. To my mind, incompetence is still a better explanation for the way things turned out.

Yet, that does not make what s9 says untrue. In this context it would not surprise me that the Bush Administration would be willing to start some shit with Iran and dare the next President and Congress to have to deal with it. They are just realizing their idiotic comic plans for world domination will take longer than the standard 48 minute Tee-Vee drama format, more like a 112 minute made for Tee-Vee movie of the week...

My government sucks like sucking right now.

mojo sends

Religion of Peace, My Ass!

Watch it! Learn it! Live it!



When the Angry Sky Fairy says "smite" the only thing I wanna hear outta y'all is "how many?"

mojo sends

Just Burn It Down, Baby!

Tanta over at Calculated Risk writes about an IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENT in the unfolding housing and credit market crisis:

I have no evidence that lenders are out torching homes instead of foreclosing on them, but then again I bet I could get an unnamed source to opine that it's possibly a dangerous trend...

I can arrange that.

Hell, I'll go farther, and assert categorically, without a shred of evidence, and pseudonymously to boot, that it's happening now, it's a huge problem, and it's only going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

It doesn't have to be true. That's the beauty of it. It's truthy in a good way. Spread the word.

I truly despise the fact I was not too terribly shocked to read this article about the propaganda campaign employed by the White House and the Pentagon.

My first impression, beyond the usual sense of horror and anger I usually experience when I read one of these Bush Administration classics, is simply this; I am consistently amazed at the disparity between what can only be characterized as an innovative, sophisticated, propaganda scheme cooked up by this Administration and the Pentagon, and the utter incompetence bordering on stupidity that goes into planning all that other minor stuff, like the war in Iraq and dealing with the threat posed by Al Queda.

Just go ahead and read the article if you haven't and tell me you aren't struck by how slick that campaign was and is, and how botched up the actual military mission is. Let's look at an example:

Again and again, records show, the administration has enlisted analysts as a rapid reaction force to rebut what it viewed as critical news coverage, some of it by the networks’ own Pentagon correspondents. For example, when news articles revealed that troops in Iraq were dying because of inadequate body armor, a senior Pentagon official wrote to his colleagues: “I think our analysts — properly armed — can push back in that arena.”

[emphasis mine]

And they did push back, very skillfully and effectively. But, did they respond to the body armor and vehicle armor issue with that same level of skill and competence?

No.

Instead, they concentrated on the political element, the pushback in the media. Body armor and vehicle armor issues persisted for years to come. That's swell guys. Thank goodness you managed the all important media war and allowed the tangential shooting war to dissolve into chaos and cause all that death. Too bad about the dead people. We'll have to make sure anyone upset about that is Swiftboated or has their right to vote stripped from them in some electoral scheme.

I think these people actually might have made me despise them more. Good Effort Bush Team! Way to keep it up right to the very end!

Pierce speaks, you listen...

Charles Pierce puts his finger on an aspect of the torture debacle that managed to truly astound me:

via Altercation:

I was away from the Intertubes for several days and, therefore, I am just now catching up to the whole "Bittergate" controversy. (I actually heard a TV drone say that.) I also am just now catching up with the fact that the president of the United States is proud to have hosted meetings in which specific techniques of torture were discussed in the presidential mansion. Forgive me if I am not yet up to speed on the two stories, but having a candidate for the presidency say something that virually anyone who's spent any time in the region in question knows to be true -- which, I will admit, leaves out almost all of the people covering national politics these days -- seems to me rather less of a story than the fact that a giggling unemployable spent time pretending to be Henry VIII down the hall from a gathering of bloodsoaked, pathetic wannabe tough guys. (I mean, lord save us, but is there a more obvious dweeb than Douglas Feith?) I have no illusions about the dirty deeds that were plotted and executed in the Executive manse down through the years, but this thing? Smarmy little bureaucrats exchanging their favorite episodes of 24, the way the late Chris Farley used to host "The Chris Farley Show" ("You remember when Jack shot the guy in the kneecap? That was awesome.")? CIA guys brought in to "demonstrate" the subleties of each method? This wasn't national security. This was porn, plain and simple. Everyone of these criminal bastards should have been wearing a raincoat.

To be specific, he is referring to this Vanity Fair article which discusses how torture advocates at Gitmo and in Washington used A FREAKING TELEVISION SHOW as a direct guide to their policies on torturing detainees. How is this possible?

Put aside the gut wrenching idea that this country, after the War Crimes of the Nazi's and the Japanese, the use of horrific techniques to break our soldiers in captivity in North Korea and Vietnam, and this nations post war commitment to the establishment of binding agreements on all nations on the rights of detainees, that we would even consider the torture of human beings as policy. Let's just try to come to grips with the sophomoric, almost insouciant manner these immense moral questions are dealt with. So will video games be next? Will our nations next major conflict be guided by the Presidents strategic experience that he gained from Super Mario Bros? What the f*$k is this crap?

I understand that television shapes our views and world outlook more that we might want to admit. But this way beyond that. At first the faux tough guy crap of David Addington and the draft dodgers like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove making fun of Colin Powell when he expressed his objections to the torture policy seems like more of the Frat Boy posturing which has come to define this Administration. But this whole enterprise goes beyond that. Pierce is right, this is pornography. I mean that in the sense that this was not an effort to simply gain information. This was revenge. Revenge against Al Queda and anyone remotely Arabic, Islamic, or even from that part of Asia. It's sadism pure and simple.

There is not enough raincoats in the world to prevent the splatter on the rest of us.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Cavalry has arrived!

Fafblog is back!

You know, for a while I was getting worried, what with the Democratic party circular firing squad and annihilation of our financial system unfolding before our eyes. But now, I know that Giblets, the Medium Lobster, and Fafnir will make it ALL better.

"The triumphant cry of revolution will call out through the streets: Vive Fáfnir! Vive Gibléts!" says Giblets. "Radical Fafbloggists will demand a new era of Fafno-Gibletsian rule over the cosmos, and none will be able to stand in their way!"

P.S. Fafblog gives us a link to a fine update on the latest from a Mojowire favorite Jack Chick. Enjoy...

The rite of Spring: Social Security and the End Times.

As the debacle that is our deregulated financial system continues to unfold, the Social security commisioners released their annual "the sky is falling" report. The report is not receiving the love it used to get. It's difficult to argue to Americans that their social security would be better off in the hands of the people who so skillfully fnorked up the markets with their "innovations" and superior expertise.

Paul Krugman takes this occasion to repost his explanation of the Social Security issue.

The Krugmaninator:

Social Security is a government program supported by a dedicated tax, like highway maintenance. Now you can say that assigning a particular tax to a particular program is merely a fiction, but in fact such assignments have both legal and political force. If Ronald Reagan had said, back in the 1980s, “Let’s increase a regressive tax that falls mainly on the working class, while cutting taxes that fall mainly on much richer people,” he would have faced a political firestorm. But because the increase in the regressive payroll tax was recommended by the Greenspan Commission to support Social Security, it was politically in a different box - you might even call it a lockbox - from Reagan’s tax cuts.
The purpose of that tax increase was to maintain the dedicated tax system into the future, by having Social Security’s assigned tax take in more money than the system paid out while the baby boomers were still working, then use the trust fund built up by those surpluses to pay future bills. Viewed in its own terms, that strategy was highly successful.
The date at which the trust fund will run out, according to Social Security Administration projections, has receded steadily into the future: 10 years ago it was 2029, now it’s 2042. As Kevin Drum, Brad DeLong, and others have pointed out, the SSA estimates are very conservative, and quite moderate projections of economic growth push the exhaustion date into the indefinite future.
But the privatizers won’t take yes for an answer when it comes to the sustainability of Social Security. Their answer to the pretty good numbers is to say that the trust fund is meaningless, because it’s invested in U.S. government bonds. They aren’t really saying that government bonds are worthless; their point is that the whole notion of a separate budget for Social Security is a fiction. And if that’s true, the idea that one part of the government can have a positive trust fund while the government as a whole is in debt does become strange.
But there are two problems with their position.
The lesser problem is that if you say that there is no link between the payroll tax and future Social Security benefits - which is what denying the reality of the trust fund amounts to - then Greenspan and company pulled a fast one back in the 1980s: they sold a regressive tax switch, raising taxes on workers while cutting them on the wealthy, on false pretenses. More broadly, we’re breaking a major promise if we now, after 20 years of high payroll taxes to pay for Social Security’s future, declare that it was all a little joke on the public.
The bigger problem for those who want to see a crisis in Social Security’s future is this: if Social Security is just part of the federal budget, with no budget or trust fund of its own, then, well, it’s just part of the federal budget: there can’t be a Social Security crisis. All you can have is a general budget crisis. Rising Social Security benefit payments might be one reason for that crisis, but it’s hard to make the case that it will be central.
But those who insist that we face a Social Security crisis want to have it both ways. Having invoked the concept of a unified budget to reject the existence of a trust fund, they refuse to accept the implications of that unified budget going forward. Instead, having changed the rules to make the trust fund meaningless, they want to change the rules back around 15 years from now: today, when the payroll tax takes in more revenue than SS benefits, they say that’s meaningless, but when - in 2018 or later - benefits start to exceed the payroll tax, why, that’s a crisis. Huh?
I don’t know why this contradiction is so hard to understand, except to echo Upton Sinclair: it’s hard to get a man to understand something when his salary (or, in the current situation, his membership in the political club) depends on his not understanding it. But let me try this one more time, by asking the following: What happens in 2018 or whenever, when benefits payments exceed payroll tax revenues?
The answer, very clearly, is nothing.
The Social Security system won’t be in trouble: it will, in fact, still have a growing trust fund, because of the interest that the trust earns on its accumulated surplus. The only way Social Security gets in trouble is if Congress votes not to honor U.S. government bonds held by Social Security. That’s not going to happen. So legally, mechanically, 2018 has no meaning.
Now it’s true that rising benefit costs will be a drag on the federal budget. So will rising Medicare costs. So will the ongoing drain from tax cuts. So will whatever wars we get into. I can’t find a story under which Social Security payments, as opposed to other things, become a crucial budgetary problem in 2018.
What we really have is a looming crisis in the General Fund. Social Security, with its own dedicated tax, has been run responsibly; the rest of the government has not. So why are we talking about a Social Security crisis?

Blog Against Torture Day? It's Always Blog Against Torture Day Here...

On my Live Journal one of my flisters, TK, made the following observation about torture here on Blog Against Torture day:

"The sad thing is, were there to have been such a day ten years ago, the assumption wouldn't be we were preaching against the US, but rather China, or North Korea, or Iraq."

You know, that's an interesting observation... just a few years ago when rumors of such things were starting to percolate into the national consciousness, my best friend dr_strych9, was one of the first people I remember to take this seriously.

It was part of the reason we started all this in the first place. It's always blog against torture day here on the mojowire...

That notwithstanding, myself, Hebisner, and a couple of our other friends did not believe this was happening. Common sense and common knowledge all argued against it... The U.S. was a signatory to a zillion international anti-torture conventions, it's generally accepted that torture produces questionable intel, it ran counter to nearly everything we were brought up to believe about the organizing principles of our nation...

Torture? The United States? No, that was just crazy conspiracy talk, just a degree of separation or so off of Area 51 and Masonic One World Government zeitgeist.

As each revelation has come out, from Bagram Airbase to Abu Ghraib to CIA Black Sites, etc... it's been a disorienting experience, like I went to bed America and woke up in the Bizzaro world "mirror-mirror" version... I keep expecting to see Leonard Nimoy in a gold lamay sash and a cheesy Lee-Paste-On goatee beard to appear and ask me for my agonizer...sorry, obscure Star Trek reference...

But perhaps the saddest thing has been to see our national reaction to this. Instead of righteous outrage verging on revolution to even the idea we had become this kind of nation, there was a kind of apathetic acceptance... Torture? Hey, as long as they keep the terrorists from interfering with "Dancing with the Stars..." then sure, what the hell... hey what's the latest Britney news!?

Oh sure, a few anti-social malcontents and the dirty fucking hippies were complaining, but you know how they go on... they're always complaining about something...

And this lackadaisical attitude seemed to be contagious in that it infected the legislative branch that seemed to be obsessed with doing anything other than exercising their Constitutional duty of executive oversight.

So... quo vadis? Where next? Frankly, I don't know. But what's happened in the last eight years can't just be undone. We can't just walk away from this. If I had "The Answer" I promise I would post if for everyone, but I don't.

But I think people speaking out is good first step...

mojo sends